About

Yiyi He is an assistant professor in the School of City and Regional Planning at the College of Design at Georgia Tech, with an affiliation to the Center for Urban Resilience and Analytics (CURA). She is also a Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Faculty Fellow. Her research centers on the interdisciplinary fields of urban planning, GIScience, climate science, and artificial intelligence. She is interested in building a better understanding of the uncertainty and asymmetric impacts of climate-change-induced extreme weather events, such as flooding, wildfires, and extreme heat, on critical components of the built environment, including lifeline infrastructure networks and vulnerable neighborhoods. She leverages data-driven approaches, such as GIS, network science, hyperspectral remote sensing, machine learning, and spatial statistics, to address complex challenges in climate change and resilience research and to inform more intelligent planning and policy directives. Her previous work involves using 3D hydrodynamic flood models to simulate flooding under different climate change scenarios and analyze the impact of coastal and inland flooding on critical infrastructure networks. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Nanjing University and earned her master’s and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley.

Research topics

• Materials science
• Nanotechnology
• Chemistry
• Chemical engineering
• Composite material
• Organic chemistry
• Polymer chemistry
• Photochemistry
• Optoelectronics

Selected publications

• Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies related to immune effector cell-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis-like syndrome: Diagnosis, high-risk factors, and management

  Chinese Medical Journal · 2026-03-30

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT: Immune effector cell-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis-like syndrome (IEC-HS) is a life-threatening complication of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) therapy. Despite its high mortality rate, IEC-HS remains underrecognized due to overlapping clinical and laboratory features with severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS), leading to delayed diagnosis and suboptimal management. This review systematically analyzes key strategies to distinguish IEC-HS from severe CRS in the literature. The analysis focuses on temporal patterns, such as the delayed onset of IEC-HS after CAR-T infusion. It also examines dynamic laboratory trends, including persistently elevated ferritin and lactate dehydrogenase levels and a slower decline in C-reactive protein (CRP). In addition, distinct cytokine profiles are discussed, such as prolonged interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) elevation and surges in chemokines and growth factors. We further identify high-risk factors for IEC-HS, including patient-specific factors (baseline inflammation, low natural killer [NK] cell counts), disease-related factors (high B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia [B-ALL] burden and prior high-grade CRS), and CAR-T-related factors (CD22 target, CD28 costimulation, T-cell selection, high CAR-T cell dose, excessive CAR-T cell expansion, and TET2 gene mutation). For management, we evaluate conventional therapies (corticosteroids, etoposide) and emerging immunomodulatory agents (anakinra, ruxolitinib, emapalumab), emphasizing the 2023 treatment regimen by the American Society of Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT). By integrating risk stratification, early diagnostic criteria, and tailored therapeutic approaches, this review aims to improve clinical outcomes for IEC-HS patients.

  PublisherDOI

• A chitosan-tea polyphenol composite hydrogel with integrated antibacterial, antioxidant and immunomodulatory functions for the tissue regeneration of MRSA-infected wounds

  Bioorganic Chemistry · 2026-03-04 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Layered double metal hydroxide nanosheets (LDH) delivery ICG for photoimmune antibacterial therapy and tissue infected wound regeneration

  Biomaterials Advances · 2026-03-10

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Carbon Dots Driven Near Infrared Light Induced Miniemulsion Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization Via Interfacial Catalysis at the Oil-Water Interface

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Precision Nanoconfined Self‐Assembly of ACQ Carbon Dots for Enhanced Solid‐State Fluorescence

  Advanced Science · 2025-05-08 · 21 citations

  articleOpen access

  Carbon dots (CDs) are promising fluorescent nanomaterials, however, they are often hindered by aggregation caused quenching (ACQ) in solid-state application because of close π-π stacking interactions. Furthermore, the challenges still exist in the development of CDs-based solid-state fluorescent materials with stable structure and high fluorescence intensity. To address this challenge, a general and robust polymer directed nanoconfined self-assembly strategy is developed, enabling the fabrication of regular morphology, structurally ultra-stable and solid-state fluorescent CDs assemblies using hydrophilic star-liked di-block copolymer unimolecular micelles as templates. The absolute photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of these fluorescent solid-state CD assemblies reaches 21.46%, significantly higher than 0.12% observed in traditional ACQ solid-state CDs. The enhanced solid-state fluorescent property is attributed to the prevention of the π-π stacking of CDs, the restricted movement of surface groups and the suppression of non-radiative transition processes via the polymer directed nanoconfined self-assembly of CDs. The fluorescence intensity of CDs assemblies can also be precisely tuned by adjusting the polymerization time of polymer template. Based on these advantages, the CDs assemblies are employed as luminescent materials in the identification of latent fingerprints (LFP), flexible films and 3D printing functional hydrogels.

  PublisherDOI

• Lead‐Free Cesium Metal Halide Perovskite via Solvent‐Free Mechanosynthesis Route

  Energy & environment materials · 2025-07-29 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Recent advancements in lead halide perovskites opened up an avenue for vast optoelectronic applications. However, lead toxicity and the complicated synthesis process posed major obstacles to their further practical applications. To address these issues, a facile and robust mechanochemical synthesis of cesium manganese halide (Cs 3 MnX 5 , X = halide element) was developed via a highly efficient solvent‐free ball milling strategy. This green approach exempted the utilization of any harmful organic solvents, thereby enabling the fast and cost‐effective production of lead‐free Cs 3 MnX 5 with excellent optical properties. Cs 3 MnX 5 perovskites with mixed halide compositions could also be readily fabricated through this eco‐friendly approach at room temperature without any post‐purification. Furthermore, the robustness of the ball milling strategy was proved by fabricating zinc‐doped Cs 3 MnX 5 perovskites with enhanced thermal stability and ambient stability. These features demonstrated that ball milling was highly efficacious for producing high‐quality non‐toxic halide perovskites, which could be used in light‐emitting diodes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Durable cesium metal halide perovskite nanorods formed using a multifunctional polycationic diblock copolymer

  Chemical Communications · 2025-01-01

  article

  living radical polymerization. This polymer can serve as a strong passivating ligand to replace the short ligand on a perovskite nanorod, thereby significantly enhancing its colloidal stability, moisture stability, photostability and thermal stability.

  PublisherDOI

• Author response for "Carbon dots driven near infrared light induced miniemulsion atom transfer radical polymerization"

  2025-09-25

  peer-review
  PublisherDOI

• Associations between socioeconomic factors and post–liver transplant mortality across recovery phases

  Liver Transplantation · 2025-11-13

  article

  Socioeconomic status (SES) is a well-established determinant of liver transplantation (LT) outcomes, but prior studies have treated SES as a static baseline attribute, assessed only at fixed milestones such as 1- or 5-year mortality. Although the existing body of work has established the importance of SES in post-transplant care, this approach overlooks the dynamic and time-sensitive nature of socioeconomic risk across the recovery trajectory, potentially missing critical details that could inform timely and targeted interventions. Using the United Network for Organ Sharing registry, we analyzed 105,907 adult recipients of LT from 2005 to 2022. Follow-up was divided into 4 intervals defined using sliding-window and time-varying Cox analyses to detect the earliest onset of ZIP code-level median household income and Social Deprivation Index (SDI) effects on survival. Interval-specific clinical, surgical, and demographic covariates were selected using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression, and income and SDI quartiles were incorporated separately into multivariable Cox models with time-varying covariates to assess independent associations with mortality. During the immediate and early postdischarge periods, neither income nor SDI was independently associated with mortality. Beginning at 4-12 months, higher SDI was significantly associated with increased mortality (HR: 1.12, 95% CI: 1.02-1.23), with the effects intensifying over time (time-varying HR: 1.38, 95% CI: 1.10-1.73). Income-related disparities emerged later, becoming significant during long-term follow-up beyond 1 year, when lower income quartiles were independently associated with excess mortality (lowest quartile: HR: 1.17, 95% CI: 1.11-1.24). These findings demonstrate that socioeconomic vulnerability after LT is not fixed but evolves over time. This study introduces a time-resolved framework that identifies when SES factors first become consequential, highlighting actionable windows for targeted interventions to reduce inequities in post-transplant care.

  PublisherDOI

• Precise Construction of Helical Unimolecular Micelles from Poly(Phenylacetylene)S for Tunable Circularly Polarized Luminescence and Sensing

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Xinchang Pang

  Henan University of Science and Technology

  87 shared

• Xiaoguang Qiao

  Zhengzhou University

  61 shared

• Zhiqun Lin

  Ewha Womans University

  58 shared

• Ge Shi

  Zhengzhou University

  50 shared

• Minying Liu

  33 shared

• Zhe Cui

  Nanyang Technological University

  30 shared

• Xiaomeng Zhang

  National Clinical Research Center for Digestive Diseases

  28 shared

• Yihuang Chen

  Tarim University

  24 shared

Education

• PhD, School of Materials Science and Engineering

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  2017

Awards & honors

• Brook Byers Institute for Sustainable Systems (BBISS) Facult…